Movement for
Wellness. Never end the sentence.Promise a good friend that you will not end your life
without first talking to them about doing
it.

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Teen
students are more likely to take their life when:

Alcohol or drugs are
involved
If their parents are divorced
If they have access to a gun
Are failing education
Are involved in teen pregnancy
Hear of other teen suicides
Have low self-esteem
Are highly sexually active.
Source: brainblogger.com/2014/09/10/back-to-school-suicides/

Pay particular attention if they
experience:

1. Loss of a loved one
2. Divorce or separation of their parents
3. Any major transition  new home, new school.
4.Traumatic life experiences, like living through a natural
disaster
5.Teasing or bullying
6. Difficulties in school or with classmates

However,
you never know

Young people dont always know
how to get through stressful times. Adults tend to end their
lives because of major life stressors, but for an
adolescent, the breaking point is often less significant.

Risk factors line up like lights on
the street. For a student to go from thinking about suicide
to attempting suicide, all these lights have to turn green.
One light might be a fight with a parent. Another might be a
flunked test, a breakup, a peers suicide. They might
contemplate suicide for months, and then the final act is
often on impulse, if everything falls into place. Teachers
have even about a particular suicide. "If you would have
given me 200 names, hers would have been at the bottom of
the list of someone who would do this.

Dont be
afraid of the S word.

You may be afraid to ask your child if
they are having suicidal thoughts, assuming that you will
put the idea in their head. Dont worry. Either they
are already having suicidal thoughts, in which case it may
be a big relief to talk about it. If they havent,
talking about it openly will allow them to bring the subject
up again if this changes. And please note that even children
younger than 12 do commit suicide.

Teen
SuicideYouth suicides are
on the increase in the US. It is the third leading cause of
death for teenagers aged 15-19 (after motor vehicle
accidence and unintentional injury). Two-thirds of all
suicides under 25 were committed with firearms. Suicide is
increasing, particularly for those under 14.

Youth and elderly suicides are on the
increase in the US. And, according to The World Health
Organization (WHO) over 786,000 people committed suicide
around the world in 1997. This is an effective suicide rate
of around 10.7 per 100,000 population per year. To put this
statistic in perspective, that is the equivalent of one
suicide every forty seconds, somewhere in the
world.

Suicide is the ninth leading cause of
death in the US with 31,204 deaths recorded in 1995. This
approximates to around one death every seventeen minutes.
There are more suicides than homicides each year in the
US.

From 1952 to 1992, the incidence of
suicide among teens and young adults tripled. Today, it is
the third leading cause of death for teenagers aged 15-19
(after motor vehicle accidence and unintentional injury).
Two-thirds of all suicides under 25 were committed with
firearms (accounts for most of the increase in suicides from
1980 to 1992). The second most common method was hanging,
third was poisoning. Suicide is increasing, particularly for
those under 14 and in those over 65, while not the leading
cause of death, the suicide rate is extremely
high.

How to Help
Someone

1. Resist trying to
help. People who feel suicidal dont want answers or
solutions. They want a safe place to express their fears and
anxieties, to be themselves.

2. They want someone
to trust. Someone who will respect them and wont try
to take charge. Someone who will treat everything in
complete confidence.

3. They want someone
to care. Someone who will make themselves available, put the
person at ease and speak calmly. Someone who will reassure,
accept and believe. Someone who will say, "
care."

If the person is
actively suicidal

Get help immediately.
Do not leave your teen alone.

Ask your - "Are you
thinking of suicide?" Asking someone if they are suicidal
will not make them suicidal. Most likely they will be
relieved that you have asked. Experts believe that most
people are ambivalent about their wish to die.

Listen actively to
what your teen is saying. Remain calm and do not judge what
you are being told. Do not advise them not to feel the way
they are.

Reassure your teen
that there is help for their problems and that they are not
"bad" or "stupid" because they are thinking about
suicide.

Help your teen break
down their problem(s) into more manageable
pieces.

Offer to investigate
counseling services.

Do not agree to keep
their suicidal thoughts or plans a secret. Helping someone
who is suicidal can be very stressful.

Suggest that they see
a doctor for a complete physical. Although there are many
things that family and friends can do to help, there may be
underlying medical problems that require professional
intervention. Your doctor can also refer patients to a
psychiatrist, if necessary.

Encourage them to see
a trained counselor. Do not be surprised if they refuse but
be persistent. There are many types of caregivers for the
suicidal. If the person will not go to a psychologist, or a
psychiatrist, suggest, for example, they talk to a clergy,
guidance counselor or teacher.

If you are concerned
that someone you know may be thinking of suicide, you can
help. Remember, as a helper, do not promise to do anything
you do not want to do or that you cannot do.

Teen
suicide is contagious, and the problem may be worse than we
thought
Lucrecia Sjoerdsma knew what to watch for: the lingering
moodiness, the sudden disinterest in what once brought joy.
But her daughter, Riley Winters, a ninth-grader at Discovery
Canyon Campus High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was
always smilingthe 15-year-old used whitening strips
because she loved showing off her perfect teeth. Her
smile really matched her personality, Sjoerdsma says.
A petite girl with brown hair that went just past her
shoulders, Riley seemed to be a happy, goofy kid and a kind
young woman who could sense when others were down and find a
way to cheer them up. Riley liked hiking and rock climbing.
She spoke of joining the military or becoming an
archaeologist, a physical therapist or a dental hygienist.
She had plenty of time to decide.

Even though her mother had no sense
that Riley was having problems, she knew it was important to
talk to her daughter about suicide, and so she did. Between
2013 and 2015, 29 kids in their county had killed
themselves, many from just a handful of schools, including
Rileys. There had been gunshot deaths, hangings and
drug overdoses. And then there were those choking deaths the
victims parents insisted were accidental.

Riley knew of at least two of the kids
who had killed themselves the previous winter: an older girl
at school (they had mutual friends) and a boy in her
Christian youth group. Such peripheral connections are all
that seem to connect most of the kids in the area who had
killed themselves, and school and county officials began to
worry they were witnessing a copycat effect...until copycat
became too weak a word. It was more like an outbreak, a
plague spreading through school hallways.

About a year after Sjoerdsma and her
daughter last spoke about suicide, Riley was staying at her
fathers house one night when she downed a small bottle
of whiskey, then sent out a series of troubling texts and
Snapchat messages. Im sorry it had to be
me, she wrote to one friend. Then she slipped on a
blue Patagonia fleece and snuck out the basement window,
carrying her fathers gun.

When Rileys mother and friends
saw the messages, they went looking for her at local parks,
gas stations and friends houses, all the while begging
her via texts and calls to come home.

The next morning, they found her body
in the woods behind her fathers house. Shed shot
herself in the head.

Three days later, and two days before
Rileys memorial service, another Discovery Canyon
Campus student killed himself. Her daughter probably knew
the boy, but they werent close, Rileys mother
says. Nine days later, yet another classmate committed
suicide. He had been on the swim team with the boy
whod just killed himself. And that wasnt the end
of it: Five students from the school of 1,180 died by
suicide between late 2015 and summer 2016, a rate almost 49
times the yearly national average for kids their
age.

Its not just at that one school.
As of mid-October, the total for teen suicides this year in
El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, is 13, one short
of the total for all of 2015. Neighboring Douglas County had
a similar crisis a few years ago, and news of a
classmates suicide no longer fazes students in the
area, kids say. Its become almost
commonplace, says Gracie Packard, a high school junior
in Rileys district. Because it doesnt
happen once every four years. It happens four times in a
month, sometimes.

Another day, another kid.
Its hard.

Death on Instagram

Sociologists have long said people who
form bonds are less likely to kill themselves, but sometimes
the opposite is truestudies now show that one
persons suicidal behavior can spur anothers, and
one death can lead to more deaths.

Decades
of research prove that a
startling range of emotions and behaviors can be
contagiousfrom moodiness to yawning. Young people are
especially susceptible; they obsess over fads and fashion
trends and copy illicit behaviors from peers, such as
smoking, drinking or speeding. Or suicide. Using a
statistical formula typically applied to tracking outbreaks
of diseases, researchers at Columbia University and other
institutions confirmed in 1990 that suicide is contagious
and can be transmitted between people. Contagion spreads
either directly, by knowing a suicide victim, or indirectly,
by learning of a suicide through word-of-mouth or the media.
Those same researchers found that people ages 15 to 19 are
two
to four times more prone to suicide
contagion than people in other
age groups. The way it spreads can be so similar to that of
diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) has sometimes gone into a region to investigate spikes
in suicides.

Analysts call those spikes suicide
clustersan unusually high number of people in an area
kill themselves (or attempt to) in a short period of time.
The clusters tend to happen where people socialize, such as
schools, psychiatric hospitals or military units. Madelyn
Gould, one of the analysts who made the contagion discovery,
has said these clusters make up between 1
and 5 percent of teen suicides
but are vitally important to understand because they
represent a class of suicides that may be particularly
preventable. And a few consecutive suicides can
devastate a community.

Another reason it is crucial to
understand these clusters is that suicide is likely becoming
more contagious, thanks in large part to social media.
Analysts have long assumed that a suicide typically has a
profound impact on six people, but that estimate is from the
early 1970s and limited to close family members. Social
networks (both online and in real life) are much bigger
today, and soon-to-be-published research by Julie Cerel,
president-elect of the American Association of Suicidology,
shows that a suicide may now touch around 135 people, and
about one-third of them experience a severe life disruption
because of that suicide. She and her colleagues previously
found, in 2015, that people who know a suicide victim are
almost
twice as likely to develop
suicidal thoughts as the general population. The closer the
relationship, the greater the risk; the younger the person
exposed, the greater the risk.

Young people arent the only ones
facing a suicide problem; the national suicide rate across
all demographics is at
an almost 30-year high. But
more
than three times as many teens
are killing themselves now than
in the 1950s. Most of these
suicides arent copycats, but some areas across the
country are suffering from the sort of contagion that has
stricken Colorado Springs; the CDC investigated cases in
Fairfax County, Virginia, in 2014 and Palo
Alto, California, in 2016.
Other clusters have likely gone undetected because its
often so difficult to make the connections between
victims.

Suicide prevention advocates tend to
blame television and newspaper coverage for inspiring
copycats, but for teens, social media are a growing problem.
Instagram pages for kids who kill themselves sometimes
contain hundreds of comments. Many are about how beautiful
or handsome the deceased were, how they can finally rest in
peace and how there should be a party for them in heaven.
Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American
Foundation for Suicide Prevention, says the message seems to
be that if you kill yourself, youll not only end your
suffering but also become the most popular kid in school.
Teens sometimes have more than 1,000 Instagram followers, so
kids far beyond one school or community can see digital
shrines to dead friends. Moutier says those posts can seem
as if theyre romanticizing death.

Scholars are struggling to keep up
with the evolving technology, and they say theres
still a paucity of research on how suicidal thoughts spread
through social media. It makes these deaths no longer
isolated, says Cerel, and kids are exposed and
perhaps profoundly affected by someone they might have never
even met in person. Analysts say clusters could become
harder to spot, because they typically occur in a specific
area, but social networks for teens now spread far beyond a
school, a neighborhood, even a city.

The Choking Game

Its hard to identify
patient zero in the Colorado Springs suicide
outbreak because kids today are so interconnected, and the
families involved have kept many details private.
Researchers also know that they cant limit their
search to one group; the first suicide at one school may
have been inspired by the death of a student at another.
Other factors muddling the search: The coroners office
doesnt always track where the deceased went to school,
and districts are hesitant to say how many teens
theyve lost to suicide, citing student privacy laws
and fear of copycats. (Editor's
note: In the 2014/15 Oregon Healthy Teen Survey, 3.6%
of 8th graders and 0.8% of 11th graders had participated in
the 'Chocking Game'. Comparing the two, it might appear that
the increase in popularity of the acitive is a 450% increase
in the last three years.)

One known precursor to the current
wave of suicides was in 2011, when a Colorado Springs father
found his 12-year-old son suspended from a bunk bed. The
parents insist it was not a suicide and instead blame the
choking
game, in which a person
cuts off blood flow to the brain and then releases it in
order to feel lightheaded or even high. The coroners
office ruled the cause of death undetermined. In
2013, a 15-year-old from the same school district strangled
himself, and his parents blamed the choking game. The number
of teen suicides started picking up in the spring of 2015,
when a Discovery Canyon Campus student shot herself. The
next month, three local kids took their own lives. From June
to November, there were five more suicides in the Colorado
Springs area; in December, there was on average one teen
suicide per week. The deaths surged again toward the end of
the last school year, beginning with Rileys
suicide.

Those tracking the situation are
convinced its a contagion, but theyre unsure how
its spreading. That makes it all the more frightening
and difficult to stop. Its two years in a row
weve dealt with the same sort of terrifying
trend, says Kelly, the medical examiner.

Colorados Child Fatality
Prevention System, which investigated all youth suicides in
the state from 2010 to 2014, identified
risk factors, (105 page pdf)
including family arguments, relationship breakups and
physical or emotional abuse. Others blame regional factors,
like the nearby Army and Air Force bases, as the children of
people serving in the military are at elevated
risk for suicidal thoughts. (A
parents deployment can lead to increased
responsibilities at home for a kid or emotional problems
because of the separation and possibility of a parents
death.) Some blame the high altitude, which researchers
have
linked to suicide.

Analysts also point out that young
people dont always know how to get through stressful
times. Adults tend to end their lives because of major life
stressors, Kelly says, but for a kid, the breaking point is
often less significant. These risk factors line up
like lights on the street, says Richard Lieberman, a
mental health consultant for the Los Angeles County Office
of Education. For a kid to go from thinking about
suicide to attempting suicide, all these lights have to turn
green. One light might be a fight with a parent.
Another might be a flunked test, a breakup, a peers
suicide. Kids might contemplate suicide for months, and then
the final act is often on impulse, if everything falls
into place, says Scott Poland, a school crisis expert
from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Poland and
Lieberman are working with Discovery Canyon Campus and its
district.

Riley didnt show any obvious
signs of mental health problems, according to her mother,
and wasnt in therapy or on medication. Teachers
even said, If you would have given me 200 names, hers would
have been at the bottom of kids who would do
this.

But Riley was having trouble in the
classroomshe fooled around during class, and her
grades suffered, which added pressure. She kept saying
she hated school; she just didnt want to be
there, Sjoerdsma says. She also struggled with her
parents 2005 divorce. But even a few hours before her
death, at a Christian youth group gathering she was dancing
around and holding hands with friends, says Sjoerdsma,
acting like her normal self. In the car with
family friends on the way to her fathers house, Riley
rolled down the window and stuck her hands outside. She
liked to feel the cool mountain air on her palms. When she
was dropped off, she told the people she was with that
shed see them tomorrow.

Unhang
Yourself

A little more than a week after
Rileys suicide, Brittni Darras, an English teacher at
a different school in the area, posted on Facebook
that she had learned of another students attempted
suicide during a parent-teacher conference. As her mom
sat across from me, we both had tears streaming down our
faces, Darras wrote. Feeling helpless, I asked
if I could write my student a letter to be delivered to her
at the hospital. The mother agreed. After the student
received it, the mother emailed Darras to share what the
girl had said: How could somebody say such nice things
about me? I didnt think anybody would miss me if I was
gone.

Darras had lost a student to suicide a
few years earlier. Its something that, as a
teacher, you never entirely recover from, she says.
Losing one in my teaching career was more than anybody
should ever have to go through. When she heard how the
girl in the hospital had reacted, Darras decided to write
letters to the rest of her 130 students. It took her two
months. Her students were thankful, and word of what she did
spread; nearly 200,000 people have shared her Facebook
post.

Darras is one of many people in the
Colorado Springs area fighting to stop the suicides. The
initiative Safe2Tell,
which began as a pilot program in the city in the 1990s and
expanded statewide after the Columbine High School killings
in 1999, lets young people anonymously report threats by
others. State police receive the reports and connect with
local law enforcement and schools to intervene. Last school
year, Safe2Tell received 5,821 tips, up 68 percent from the
previous year. The largest category involved suicide
threats. For years, in all the work in suicide
prevention, weve really focused on one thing, and that
is seeking help if you need it, says Susan Payne, the
initiatives executive director. That meant
putting it on the victim thats struggling to make a
phone call or seek help. Her program encourages
bystanders to look for warning signs in others and report
them.

Daniel Brewster wants that too. On
December 31, 2015, hours before he and his daughter
Danielle, 17, a Discovery Canyon Campus student, planned to
celebrate the new year, she hanged herself. Brewster later
looked at his daughters phone. This is the part
that kills meI know she was texting other kids at the
time and letting them know, he says. She wrote,
My feet are off the floor, and Everything
is getting hazy and dark. None of the kids intervened;
one responded by suggesting she
unhang.

Just having a meeting with
[teens] and saying, OK, here are the signs;
heres what you look for; heres what you need to
dothats not enough, Brewster says.
It needs to be ingrained in these kids heads,
because theyre our first line of defense. Of all
the young people in Colorado who killed themselves from 2008
to 2012, more than a third had told someone of their plans,
according to a
state report.

Danielles was one of at least
three teen suicides in the Colorado Springs area in a
three-week span. Then, six weeks later, Danielles
mother hanged herself in her daughters bedroom.
Theyre supposed to be here, Brewster says,
choking on the words. Were supposed to be in
this house together.

Some local students are starting their
own prevention efforts. Gracie Packard was in the eighth
grade when she set a date to kill herself. She had struggled
with anxiety and depression since she was young and later
practiced cutting. She couldnt sleep, her grades were
slipping, and she was losing weight. She would cancel plans
with friends and stopped dancing, once a passion of hers.
Meanwhile, other kids around town, as well as one of her
siblings, were killing themselves or attempting to. It
was pretty much all around you, she says. She recalls
telling herself, If things arent better by this
date, then youve tried your best, and you can end
it.

Her friends sensed something was
wrong. Days before she planned to die, they staged an
intervention. Were worried about you, they
told her. Their concern, plus a suicide prevention nonprofit
she stumbled upon called To
Write Love on Her Arms,
convinced her to ask her mom for help. I was
physically shaking. I could hardly breathe, she says.
But that 30 seconds of bravery in being willing to say
out loud to somebody you trust that, Hey, Im not
OK, its going to be one of the scariest things
youll ever do, but it will be one of the best things
youll ever do. She soon started therapy. Now 17,
Gracie shares her mental health story publicly and advocates
for suicide prevention. An event she hosted in September
drew 150 people.

City and school officials are also
working to stem the rising death toll. Last spring, the El
Paso County Public Health department hired a specialist to
create a screening system to identify young people at
risk.

But not all parents are willing to
address the problem. Kelly, the medical examiner, says
family members almost always request that his office cite a
cause of death other than suicide, such as the choking game.
Ive had relatives ask me if I would call it an
autoerotic asphyxia because they didnt want to tell
Grandpa that his grandson had committed suicide, he
says. That really speaks to what we as Americans think
about mental illness. None of the obituaries for the
Colorado Springs kids seem to mention suicide (a common
omission everywhere), and its unlikely that their
memorial services included more than a vague
reference.

Some worry that discussing suicide
might inspire more kids to do it, but just because suicidal
behavior can spread quickly doesnt mean it has to.
Moutier, from the American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention, says thinking suicide is contagious might give
young people the impression that anyone can
catch it, even a stable, happy kid. Thats
not true, she says.

Whether the parents of the deceased
will admit it or not, suicide in most cases involves an
underlying mental health condition. Researchers have found
that if someone close to an adolescent dies by suicide, the
adolescents mental health history is a
bigger predictor of future
suicidal behavior than his or her relationship to the
suicide victim.

El Paso Countys most recent teen
suicide was on September 19a hanging on school
grounds. Because teen suicides there tend to spike at the
end of semesterswhen students may feel as if
theyre losing whatever support they had at school,
Kelly saysofficials may not know until winter break if
things are improving. Students arent necessarily
sending panicked glances around the classroom, wondering
whom this plague will strike next. They have other things to
worry aboutexams, rehearsals, sports games, college
applications. When it first happens, thats all
that is on everyones mind, says Chloe Love, a
junior at Discovery Canyon Campus, who does suicide
prevention work. Then they
move on. They have to. Sometimes, she says,
the memories just hurt too much.

Sjoerdsma says she wont hide how
Riley died. Im fully aware that my daughter
committed suicide, and I dont know why. She has
done social work, and her husband is a local middle school
teacher; neither saw the signs. Since her daughters
death, she hasnt been sleeping well, and the spate of
suicides makes the grieving process more difficult. At
night, she often lies awake, thinking about how she and
Riley used to say good night: I love you here to
heaven, Sjoerdsma would say. I love you back to
heaven, Riley would respond.

"So
You Wanna Kill Yourself? Gays and Suicide."
Gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than
their straight counterparts and the numbers increase
exponentially during the holidays. This story appears in the
Dec/Jan 99 issue of Genre and examines the issues
behind why they are taking their own lives, and offers some
solutions to the holiday blues. (Also see our own # 7
Happy
Holidaze A
report from P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays) states that in a study of 5,000 gay men and women, 35
percent of gay men and 38 percent of lesbians have
considered or attempted suicide. The statistics are even
higher among gay teens: The Department of Health study
indicates that gay youth are up to six times more likely to
attempt suicide than straight teens, and gay teenagers
account for up to 30 percent of all teenage suicides in the
nation.

"Far
more women suffer from depression that men do, so it seems
odd that women would commit suicide at only one-fourth the
rate of men. The key difference between the two sexes may be
that women talk out their problems. George E. Murphy, an
emeritus professor of psychiatry at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that women may be
protected because they are more likely to consider the
consequences of suicide on family members or others. Women
also approach personal problems differently than men and
more often seek help long before they reach the point of
considering suicide. 'As a result, women get better
treatment for their depressions,' Murphy says. To reduce the
rate of suicide in men, Murphy suggests that physicians
should be alert for risk factors in men and refer them into
treatment. Writing in the Journal of Comprehensive
Psychiatry, he says that identifying men at risk require
mental health professionals to recognize that depressed men
may understate emotional distress or difficulty with their
problems." Black Men, 3/99.Source: HealthScout,
www.healthscout.com

It's important for people with
suicidal feelings to let themselves be assisted in
overcoming deep depression. It's also a good idea to talk
about your feelings with friends. No man is an island and
there's nothing wrong with leaning on people who love you in
times of need.

See Suicide
Prevention Services
available locally. Dial 411 for your city's Suicide
Prevention Hotline, or try your local Gay & Lesbian
Center, which offers referrals for counseling, domestic
violence and suicide prevention. Crisis Text Line is
available 24/7 by texting "SOS" to 741741

Time-Space
Clustering of Teenage Suicide
The occurrence of time-space clusters was examined in
national mortality data on suicide among adolescents aged
1519 years obtained from the National Center for
Health Statistics Mortality Detail Files for 19781984.
The analyses indicated that overall significant time-space
clustering occurred among 1519 year olds. The authors
thus believe that they have documented for the first time
that outbreaks of suicide occur more frequently than
expected by chance alone. The occurrence of suicide dusters
among teenagers appeared to vary considerably by state and
year of investigation. There is some indication that there
has been an increase In teenage clusters in more recent
years.
Source: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/1/71

Teens
brains make them more vulnerable to suicideSuicide is the third leading cause of death among teens
15 to 19 years old, according to the National Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.

The young are heated by nature
as drunken men by wine.

Aristotle made that observation 2,300
years ago, and since then, not much has changed about the
way the adolescent brain behaves. But these days,
researchers are beginning to understand exactly why a
teenagers brain is so tempestuous, and what biological
factors may make teens brains vulnerable to mood
disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

Suicide is the third leading cause of
death among teens 15 to 19 years old, according to the
National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The
percentage of high school students who reported seriously
considering suicide increased from 14 percent in 2009 to 16
percent in 2011. Locally, the city of Newton is reeling from
the suicide of Roee Grutman, 17, a high school junior, in
February, the third suicide in a single school year. The
towns of Needham and New Bedford have experienced similar
spates of teen suicides in recent years.

Misconceptions about teen suicide
abound, says Dr. Barry N. Feldman, director of psychiatric
programs in public safety at the University of Massachusetts
Medical School, and a suicide prevention expert who has
worked with many Massachusetts high schools

Neither bullying, pressure to succeed
in sports or academics, nor minority sexual orientation can
cause suicide, he says, but are among a number of possible
risk factors. If you focus too much on just bullying
or sexual orientation, you take your eye off the underlying
vulnerability a kid may have, Feldman says.

Warning signs that a teen is in
danger for suicide

Suicide is typically caused by a
constellation of risk factors and underlying
vulnerabilities. Its an attempt to solve a
problem of intense pain with impaired problem-solving
skills, he says.

Researchers have long known that the
basic problem with the teenage brain is the
asymmetric or unbalanced way the brain develops,
said Dr. Timothy Wilens, a child psychiatrist at
Massachusetts General Hospital specializing in adolescents,
addictions, and attention deficit disorder.

The hippocampus and amygdala, which
Wilens calls the sex, drugs, and rock n
roll part of the brain, feels and stores emotions and
is associated with impulses. It matures well ahead of the
section of the brain that regulates those emotions and
impulses, the prefrontal cortex.

Throughout the teenage years and up
until about age 25, this executive section of the brain,
also responsible for planning and decision, lags behind,
Wilens says.

Until the front part of the brain
catches up, if kids get sad, they really experience
sadness un-tethered. He adds. Its why
first love really does break the heart.

Its during this period of brain
development that kids often act out based on their moods,
get involved in substance abuse, and when they may be at a
heightened risk to commit suicide, Wilens says. This is also
when adolescents have a higher susceptibility to psychiatric
disorders including depression, drug addiction, and
schizophrenia.

Dr. Mai Uchida, a child and adolescent
psychiatrist at Mass. General, is leading two joint studies
at the MGH Biederman Lab and the Gabrieli Lab at the
Massachusetts Institute for Technology that are searching
for biomarkers to identify the underlying vulnerability in
teens. The studies are funded by The Tommy Fuss Fund, which
memorializes a Belmont Hill teen who committed suicide in
2006.

Just as hypertension and high
cholesterol are biomarkers for heart attack, mood disorders
are indicators of kids at risk for suicide, Uchida
said.

In a healthy teen, even though brain
structure is unbalanced, the developing prefrontal cortex
still should be communicating and working in concert with
the brain section that feels and stores emotion, according
to Uchida.

In one of the studies, researchers
used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 38
children between the ages of 8 and 14 who had a parent with
a depressive disorder with a control group of 25 children
with no genetic predisposition.

Looking at the brains while the
children were in a resting state the researchers saw less
synchronized activation between the amygdala and the medial
prefrontal cortex in the kids who had a genetic
predisposition for depressive disorder than in the control
group.

The fact that these two brain regions
are not activating together could be a potential biomarker,
indicating a vulnerability for potential mental or mood
disorders.

In the second study  in which 62
subjects between ages 18 and 24 were given pictures of
people crying and asked to think about a positive way to
interpret the picture  the subjects who could not spin
a positive narrative also showed less connectivity between
the brain regions.

These deficits could represent a
unique biological vulnerability that puts youth at risk for
depression and suicide, Uchida said.

Uchida and her team are currently
readying these two studies for publication. She says there
is a lot more work to do, but she is hopeful the results
might eventually lead to early-intervention
screening.

In a study published in December,
researchers at the Douglas Institute Research Centre
affiliated with McGill University identified the gene known
as DCC as having a possible role during the maturation of
the prefrontal cortex and in healthy brain
connectivity.

Higher function or expression of DCC
appears to be associated with a greater risk of psychiatric
disorders, depression, and suicide, according to Cecilia
Flores, a professor of psychiatry at McGill and lead author
of the study.

We are very excited to discover
the function of this gene, she said. Experiments in
mice also showed that DCC gene function could be altered by
both positive and negative experiences, and influences
behaviors later in a rodents adult life. If the
results translate to humans, Flores said, it offers hope
that early therapy and support during the critical time in
adolescent brain development could have long-term positive
impact.

Wilens says that one of the most
useful early interventions for adolescents who might have
depression, mood, or attention deficit disorders is
cognitive behavioral therapy, a non-pharmaceutical approach
that can help teach kids how thoughts and thought patterns
influence behaviors.

These are areas in which kids are
lacking because of the imbalance of brain development, and
could assist them in making better connections between what
they are feeling and what they are thinking.

It helps put it all together and
has a component that gets you to stop doing something that
may harm you, Wilens said.

Feldman encourages parents and school
systems to create protective buffers  a
caring relationship with an adult, whether that is a parent,
guardian, teacher, or someone in the community. UMass
Medical is currently collaborating with the Department of
Public Health and Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education to train school personnel to develop comprehensive
programs that include suicide intervention and
prevention.

Approach to
adolescent suicide prevention
Teen suicide has increased 4-fold in the past 40 years1 and
is now the second leading cause of death in this age group.2
The number 1 risk factor for youth suicide is the presence
of mental illness.3,4 Because youth do not usually present
to their family physicians with psychological symptoms as
the chief complaint,5 physicians need to be on alert for
symptoms and risk factors that suggest the development of
psychiatric illness and suicide risk. This article will
review such risk factors and provide information and
resources to assist family physicians in assessing and
managing youth at risk of suicide and mental
illness.

Sources of
information

A literature review was performed
using Ovid MEDLINE with the key words suicide, attempted
suicide, and evaluation studies or program evaluation,
adolescent.

Challenges for family physicians The
following case presentation illustrates the complexity of
dilemmas presented to family physicians who work with
adolescents with mental health concerns. This review of
adolescent suicide will equip physicians with an approach to
help such patients.

Case description

Sarah, a 16-year-old patient you have
not seen in several years, has booked an appointment to
discuss starting birth control pills. Sarahs mother
was at the office last week for renewal of antidepressant
medication and mentioned that Sarah has been very irritable
at home and once yelled, I might as well be
dead! You know that Sarahs parents
divorced last year. While taking Sarahs blood pressure
you notice that she has several scars from superficial cuts
to her left wrist. How can you address these issues and
determine her risks?

Morbidity and mortality

Canada witnesses more than 500
suicides per year among those 15 to 24 years old, with the
next most common cause of death being cancer at 156 deaths
per year.6 It has been estimated that for each completed
suicide, there are approximately 400 attempts.7 Many
high-school students contemplate suicide,3 and with the
shortage of pediatric psychiatrists, much of the burden of
identifying and treating high-risk youth is placed on family
physicians.

The survey, published on Friday,
concluded that Snapchat, Facebook
and Twitter are also harmful. Among the five only YouTube
was judged to have a positive impact.

The four platforms have a negative
effect because they can exacerbate childrens and young
peoples body image worries, and worsen
bullying,
sleep problems and feelings of anxiety, depression and
loneliness, the participants said.

The findings follow growing concern
among politicians, health bodies, doctors, charities and
parents about young people suffering harm as a result of
sexting, cyberbullying and social media reinforcing feelings
of self-loathing and even the risk of them committing
suicide.

Its interesting to see
Instagram and Snapchat ranking as the worst for mental
health and wellbeing. Both platforms are very image-focused
and it appears that they may be driving feelings of
inadequacy and anxiety in young people, said Shirley
Cramer, chief executive of the Royal
Society for Public Health,
which undertook the survey with the Young
Health Movement.

She demanded tough measures to
make social media less of a wild west when it comes to young
peoples mental health and wellbeing. Social
media firms should bring in a pop-up image to warn young
people that they have been using it a lot, while Instagram
and similar platforms should alert users when photographs of
people have been digitally manipulated, Cramer
said.

The 1,479 young people surveyed were
asked to rate the impact of the five forms of social media
on 14 different criteria of health and wellbeing, including
their effect on sleep, anxiety, depression, loneliness,
self-identity, bullying, body image and the fear of missing
out.

Instagram emerged with the most
negative score. It rated badly for seven of the 14 measures,
particularly its impact on sleep, body image and fear of
missing out  and also for bullying and feelings of
anxiety, depression and loneliness. However, young people
cited its upsides too, including self-expression,
self-identity and emotional support.

YouTube
scored very badly for its impact on sleep but positively in
nine of the 14 categories, notably awareness and
understanding of other peoples health experience,
self-expression, loneliness, depression and emotional
support.

However, the leader of the UKs
psychiatrists said the findings were too simplistic and
unfairly blamed social media for the complex reasons why the
mental health of so many young people is
suffering.

Prof Sir Simon Wessely, president of
the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: I am sure
that social media plays a role in unhappiness, but it has as
many benefits as it does negatives.. We need to teach
children how to cope with all aspects of social media 
good and bad  to prepare them for an increasingly
digitised world. There is real danger in blaming the medium
for the message.

Tom Madders, its director of campaigns
and communications, said: Prompting young people about
heavy usage and signposting to support they may need, on a
platform that they identify with, could help many young
people.

However, he also urged caution in how
content accessed by young people on social media is
perceived. Its also important to recognise that
simply protecting young people from particular
content types can never be the whole solution. We need to
support young people so they understand the risks of how
they behave online, and are empowered to make sense of and
know how to respond to harmful content that slips through
filters.

Parents and mental health experts fear
that platforms such as Instagram can make young users feel
worried and inadequate by facilitating hostile comments
about their appearance or reminding them that they have not
been invited to, for example, a party many of their peers
are attending.

May, who has made childrens
mental health one of her priorities, highlighted social
medias damaging effects in her shared
society speech in January, saying: We know that
the use of social media brings additional concerns and
challenges. In 2014, just over one in 10 young people said
that they had experienced cyberbullying by phone or over the
internet.

After
Rash of Teen Suicides in Palo Alto, the CDC Sends Team to
InvestigateTake a walk around Palo Alto, California, on a sunny
afternoon, and it can seem like a place where nothing ever
goes wrong. The sky is a vibrant blue, flowering bushes
spill over from well-tended lawns and the temperature is
just right. But all is not well in this Silicon Valley
town.

Six young people in Palo Alto died by
suicide in 2009 and 2010, and another four in 2014 and 2015.
Several among them took their lives on the tracks of the
Caltrain, the commuter train that runs through town and
connects San Francisco and San Jose. Of high school students
in Palo Alto surveyed during the 2013-2014 school year, 12
percent had seriously considered suicide in the last year.
From the beginning of the following school year through
March, 42 students at Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto
had been hospitalized or treated for significant
suicide ideation. Overall, the suicide rate at Palo
Altos two public high schools in the past decade is
four times the national average.

Following the two clusters of youth
suicides in Palo Alto in recent years, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration have sent a
five-person team to conduct an epidemiological assessment,
the San Jose Mercury News reports. The California Department
of Public Health issued a formal request for help from the
federal agency on behalf of Santa Clara County Public Health
Department.

I really appreciate when we can
have federal support and can leverage that expertise at a
local level, Mary Gloner, executive director of the
Palo Altobased Project Safety Net, told the Mercury
News.

The inquiry will be in the form of
whats called an Epi-Aid, or an
investigation of an urgent public health problem. Over the
past few months, the CDC has been working with Santa Clara
County health officials to prepare for the visit, collecting
data on fatal and non-fatal suicidal behavior among youth in
the area between 2008 and 2015.

The team was scheduled to arrive in
the area Tuesday and is expected to conduct fieldwork in
Palo Alto and the surrounding Santa Clara County through
February 29, reviewing data and convening informal meetings
with community groups to discuss suicide prevention
strategies already in place and other potential
programs.

The main goals of the assessment,
according to a fact sheet posted on Project Safety
Nets website, are to identify and track trends in
suicidal behavior among youth between 2008 and 2015; examine
whether media coverage met safe reporting guidelines for
suicide; inventory youth suicide prevention policies,
activities and protocols; compare those to national and
other evidence-based recommendations; and, ultimately, use
all of that information and insight to make
recommendations on youth suicide prevention strategies that
can be used at the school, city, and county
level.

Though Epi-Aid
investigations are usually directed toward infectious
disease outbreaks, the Santa Clara County assessment is not
without precedent. In November 2014, the CDC sent a team to
Fairfax, Virginia, to conduct a similar investigation of
youth suicides, culminating in a 224-page report detailing
its findings, provided to the Fairfax County Health
Department in June 2015. According to the Mercury News, the
Epi-Aid team that arrived in Palo Alto on
Tuesday will release a preliminary report soon after it
completes its field work and follow up with a more
comprehensive report in several months.

Native American
Youth Suicide
Flying With Eagles holds Native American Youth Evaluation
and Training Events wherever they are deemed necessary to
access, explore, inform and educate Native American youth
and adults regarding the solutions for the increasing
problematic areas they face in todays
world.

Goals:

1. Identify problems of those
participating Native American youth from their perspective
as it relates to drug, alcohol and substance abuse along
with physical and sexual abuse.

2. Evaluate the depth and source of
the problem.

3. Identify intervention services to
combat these problems by overcoming the source of the
problem and the perceived solution.

4. Implement methods to address
appropriate counseling services in local areas and on a
regional basis.

5. Attempt to identify the cause of
the suicide attempts among the Native American youth in the
area.

6. Locate and recruit participation in
the development and correctional programs from positive role
models from the local surrounding Native American
community.

7. Develop participation in the
programs by Native American youth utilizing a peer guidance
and community support program.

Flying With Eagles, Inc., is
registered in Pennsylvania as a not for profit corporation.
Flying With Eagles,Inc., is a public charity exempt from
federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
Revenue Code.
Source: flyingwitheagles.org/services/

The
Warning Signs and Major Risk Factors of Teenage Suicide
Each year, thousands of American teenagers are diagnosed
with clinical depression. If ignored or poorly treated, it
can be a devastating illness for adolescents and their
families. A new book, Understanding
Teenage Depression, provides
the latest scientific research on this serious condition and
the most up-to-date information on its treatment. Drawing on
her many years of experience as a psychiatrist working with
teenagers, Dr. Maureen Empfield answers the questions
parents and teens have about depression. Maureen Empfield,
M.D., is director of psychiatry at Northern Westchester
Hospital Center in Mt. Kisco, New York, and assistant
clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University
College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the author or
coauthor of more than a dozen publications for the
professional market. Nicholas Bakalar is a New York-based
writer and editor.

Although it is almost impossible to
predict precisely which teenager will attempt suicide, there
are warning signs that parents can look for. The American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has assembled
this list of indications. If one or more of these signs
occur, parents should talk to their teenager and seek
professional help.

Unusual changes in eating and
sleeping habits

Withdrawal from friends, family,
and regular activities

Violent actions, rebellious
behavior, or running away

Excessive drug and alcohol
abuse

Unusual neglect of personal
appearance

Marked personality
change

Persistent boredom, difficulty
concentrating, or a decline in the quality of
schoolwork

Frequent complaints about physical
symptoms, often related to emotions, such as
stomachaches, headaches, fatigue, etc.

Loss of interest in pleasurable
activities

Not tolerating praise or
rewards

Complaints of feeling rotten
inside

Giving verbal hints such as
Nothing matters, Its no
use, or I wont be a problem for you
much longer

Putting his or her affairs in
order by giving or throwing away favorite possessions or
belongings

Becoming suddenly cheerful after
an episode of depression

In high-risk patientsthat is
patients who have threatened or attempted suicidethere
are four risk factors that account for more than 80% of the
risk for suicide: major depression, bipolar disorder, a lack
of previous mental health treatment, and the availability of
firearms in the home. If these four problems were solved,
most suicides would be prevented.Source:Maureen Empfield, M.D. and Nicholas
Bakalar

Snippets:

Persons under 25 account for 15%
of all suicides.

Between 1952 and 1995, the
incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults
nearly tripled.

Many who make suicide attempts
never seek professional care immediately after the
attempt.

Suicide was the eighth leading
cause of death of all Americans, the third leading cause
of death for 15-24 year olds, behind unintentional injury
and homicide.

More men than women die by
suicide. The gender ratio is 4:1.

73% of all suicide deaths are
white males.
80% of all firearm suicide deaths are white
males.

Nearly 3 of every 5 suicides were
committed with a firearm. Among persons 15-19,
firearm-related suicides accounted for 62% of the
increase in the overall rate of suicide.

The risk for suicide among young
people is greatest among young white males although the
suicide rates increased most rapidly among young black
males.

Although suicide among young
children is a rare event, the dramatic increase in the
rate among persons aged 10-14 underscores the urgent need
for intensifying efforts to prevent suicide among persons
in this age group..

More teenagers and young adults
die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS,
birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and
chronic lung disease, combined.

Why keep a
semicolon business card in your wallet?

Two sided business
card

;

Suicide is
preventable. It is not chosen and it is momentary.
It happens when pain exceeds the resources for
coping with pain. You're not a bad person, or
crazy, or weak, or flawed, if you feel suicidal. It
doesn't even mean that you really want to die. If
you have ever seriously considered suicide but
didn't end your life with a period, use a semicolon
to make a statement like "; I'm still here."
or "; my story isn't over." Talking or
calling a crisis line isn't a sign of weakness. It
shows real strength to ask for help. And it shows
real strength to be an ally. Help reduce the stigma
around depression and suicidal ideation. Learn the
early warning signs and wear a semicolon button
signifying you've been there and are willing to
listen to someone in crisis. And if you're in
crisis now, call the National Hopeline 24/7 at
800-273-TALK (8255)

www.TheCitizensWhoCare.org/semicolon.html

Note: The semicolon above fills one side of the actual
business card

Deaths by
Suicide and Self-inflicted Injury per 100,000 age 15-24,
1991-1993
Note that religious and social strictures against suicide
may result in some underreporting in some nations. i.e.,
China is believed to represent over 46% of the suicides in
the world. And, no information is currently available on
Denmark and France.

Ranked
by

Ranked
by

Ranked
by

Country

Males

Females

Ratio
M/F

Males

Females

Highest Ratio
M/F

Australia

27.3

5.6

5/1

9

11

7

Austria

21.1

6.5

3/1

15

7

21

Belarus

24.2

5.2

5/1

12

14

7

Bulgaria

15.4

5.6

3/.1

20

11

21

Canada

24.7

6.0

4/1

11

10

15

Czech
Rep

16.4

4.3

4/1

19

18

25

Estonia

29.7

10.6

3/1

7

1

21

Finland

33.0

3.2

10/1

6

22

2

Germany

12.7

3.4

4/1

21

21

15

Greece

3.8

0.8

5/1

30

30

7

Hungary

19.1

6.5

3/1

16

7

21

Ireland

21.5

2.0

11/1

14

27

1

Israel

11.7

2.5

5/1

23

23

7

Italy

5.7

1.6

4/1

28

29

15

Japan

10.1

4.4

2/1

24

14

27

Latvia

35.0

9.3

4/1

5

2

15

Lithuania

44.9

6.7

7/1

1

5

3

Netherlands

9.1

3.8

2/1

26

19

27

New
Zealand

39.9

6.2

51

3

9

5

Norway

28.2

5.2

5/1

8

14

7

Poland

16.6

2.5

7/1

18

23

3

Portugal

4.3

2.0

2/1

29

30

27

Russian
Fed

41.7

7.9

5/1

2

4

7

Slovenia

37.0

8.4

4/1

4

3

15

Spain

7.1

2.2

3/1

27

26

21

Sweden

10.0

6.7

1/1

25

5

30

Switzerland

25.0

4.8

5/1

10

16

7

Ukraine

17.2

5.3

3/1

17

13

21

UK

12.2

2.3

5/1

22

25

7

US

21.9

3.8

6/1

13

19

5

Source: WHO,
World Health Statistics Annual 1993 and 1994, 1994
and 1995, Center for Disease Control, National
Center for Injury Prevention and Control; National
Institute for Mental Health.

Newsbytes

Exposure to
Suicide in the Community: Prevalence and Correlates in One
U.S. StateSuicide has been identified as a major public health
issue. Exposure to suicide (i.e., knowing someone who died
by suicide) is far more pervasive than previously considered
and might be associated with significant adverse outcomes.
As suicide becomes more commonly discussed in the public
arena, a compelling need exists to determine who is exposed
to suicide and how this exposure affects those left behind.
This study estimated the proportion of the population
exposed to suicide and delineated factors that predict
significant psychiatric and psychosocial morbidity following
that exposure.

Results. Forty-eight percent of
weighted participants (n=816/1,687) reported lifetime
exposure to suicide. Current depression and anxiety symptoms
were higher in suicide-exposed than in suicide-unexposed
individuals. Suicide-exposed individuals were twice as
likely as suicide-unexposed individuals to have diagnosable
depression and almost twice as likely to have diagnosable
anxiety. Suicide-exposed individuals were more likely than
suicide-unexposed individuals to report suicide ideation (9%
vs. 5%). Closeness to the decedent increased the odds of
depression and anxiety and almost quadrupled the odds of
posttraumatic stress disorder.

Conclusion. Exposure to suicide
is pervasive and occurs beyond family; as such, it is
imperative to identify those with perceived closeness to the
decedent. This hidden cohort of suicide-exposed people is at
elevated risk for psychopathology and suicidal ideation.
Source: hr.sagepub.com/content/131/1/100.short

Many Teens at Risk
for Suicide Don't Get Help
Receiving psychological or emotional counseling can help
teens who are suicidal cope with their problems, but most
teens in trouble don't get those services, say researchers
from San Francisco, California, and Melbourne,
Australia.
Source: www.kidshealth.org/research/teen_suicide_help.html

Black Male
Teen-ager Suicide Rates Increase
The rate of suicide by gun among black male teen-agers
nearly quadrupled between 1979 and 1994 before falling off
somewhat in the late 1990s, according to a study.
Source: www.intelihealth.com/enews?347512

Who Young People
Turn to for Help

; my story
isn't over

Have you seen anyone with a
semicolon tattoo? Here's what it's about.One small character, one big purpose.

Have you seen anyone with a tattoo of
a semi-colon? If not, you may not be looking close enough.
They're popping up...everywhere.

That's right: the semicolon. It's a
tattoo that has gained popularity in recent years, but
unlike other random or mystifying trends, this one has a
serious meaning behind it. (And no, it's not just the mark
of a really committed grammar nerd.)

This mark represents mental health
struggles and the importance of suicide
prevention.

They describe themselves as a
"movement dedicated to presenting hope and love to those who
are struggling with depression, suicide, addiction, and
self-injury. Project Semicolon exists to encourage, love,
and inspire."

But why a semicolon?

"A semicolon is used when an
author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose
not to. The author is you and the sentence is your
life."

Originally created as a day where
people were encouraged to draw a semicolon on their bodies
and photograph it, it quickly grew into something greater
and more permanent. Today, people all over the world are
tattooing the mark as a reminder of their struggle, victory,
and survival.

I spoke with Jenn Brown and Jeremy
Jaramillo of The Semicolon Tattoo Project, an organization
inspired by the semicolon movement. Along with some friends,
Jenn and Jeremy saw an opportunity to both help the
community and reduce the stigma around mental
illness.

More conversations that lead to
less stigma? Yes please.

"[The tattoo] is a
conversation starter," explains Jenn. "People ask what it is
and we get to tell them the purpose."

"I think if you see someone's tattoo
that you're interested in, that's fair game to start a
conversation with someone you don't know," adds Jeremy. "It
provides a great opportunity to talk. Tattoos are
interesting  marks we put on our bodies that are
important to us."

Last year, The Semicolon Tattoo
Project held an event at several tattoo shops where people
could get a semicolon tattoo for a flat rate. "That money
was a fundraiser for our crisis center," said Jenn. In
total, over 400 people received semicolon tattoos in one
day. Even better, what began as a local event has spread far
and wide, and people all over the world are getting
semicolon tattoos.

And it's not just about the
conversation  it's about providing tangible support
and help too.

Jenn and Jeremy work with the
Agora
Crisis Center.
Founded in 1970, it's one of the oldest crisis centers in
the country. Through The Semicolon Tattoo Project, they've
been able to connect even more people with the help they
need during times of crisis. (If you need someone to talk
to, scroll to the end of the article for the center's
contact information.)

So next time you see this small
punctuation tattoo, remember the words of Upworthy writer
Parker Molloy:

"I recently decided to get a
semicolon tattoo. Not because it's trendy (though, it
certainly seems to be at the moment), but because it's a
reminder of the things I've overcome in my life. I've
dealt with anxiety, depression, and gender dysphoria for
the better part of my life, and at times, that led me
down a path that included self-harm and suicide
attempts.

But here I am, years later, finally
fitting the pieces of my life together in a way I never
thought they could before. The semicolon (and the message
that goes along with it) is a reminder that I've faced
dark times, but I'm still here."

Teen Suicide
and Suicide Prevention
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in older
children and teens.

In fact, in 2014, at least 2,145
teenagers died from suicide, making it the second leading
cause of death for teens -- just after unintentional
injuries. Surprisingly, cancer and heart disease came in at
a more distant number four and five, with about 800 and 350
deaths each.

Even for preteens, children aged 9 to
12 years old, suicide is a leading cause of death, ranking
as the fourth leading cause of death in 2014 with 117
suicide deaths.

Teen Suicide
Statistics

Unfortunately, statistics show that
suicide rates in teenagers are on the rise.

After a trend of decreasing suicide
rates from 1996 to 2007, teen suicide rates have been
slowing increasing again.

Why?

Experts aren't sure yet, but theories
include:

increase access to
guns

increase use of
alcohol

the influence of Internet social
networks, such as Facebook

increased rates of suicide among
older teens who are serving in, or returning from
Iraq

Another leading theory is that the
rise in teen suicides may be because fewer teens are being
treated with antidepressants when they have depression. This
follows the 2003 FDA warning about antidepressants and
suicide. However, since untreated depression is itself a
risk factor for suicide, fewer teens taking antidepressants
could have the unintended effect of leading to more
suicides.

Worldwide, about 90,000 teens commit
suicide each year, with about four million suicide
attempts.

That means that one teenager dies from
suicide about every five minutes.

Suicide Risk Factors in
Teens

In addition to untreated depression,
other suicide risk factors include:

Being
bullied/cyberbullied

Dropping out of school

Excessive drug and alcohol
abuse

Unusual neglect of personal
appearance

Marked personality change/mood
disorders/chronic anxiety

Persistent boredom, difficulty
concentrating, or a decline in the quality of
schoolwork

Frequent complaints about physical
symptoms, often related to emotions, such as
stomachaches, headaches, fatigue, etc.

Loss of interest in pleasurable
activities

Not tolerating praise or
rewards

Complaints of feeling rotten
inside

Giving verbal hints such as
Nothing matters, Its no
use, or I wont be a problem for you
much longer

Child abuse.

Sexual assault.

Previous suicide
attempts

Genetics -- family history of
suicide or psychiatric conditions

Putting his or her affairs in
order by giving or throwing away favorite possessions or
belongings

Becoming suddenly cheerful after
an episode of depression

Certain medications, including
antidepressants, Strattera (atomoxetine), a medication
for ADHD, and Accutane (isotretinoin), which is used to
treat teens with severe nodulocystic acne, and
antiseizure drugs, such as Tegretol (carbamazepine),
Depakoke (valproate), and Lamictal
(lamotrigine)

Suicide is also more common in
bisexual and homosexual teens.

Suicide Warning
Signs

According to the American Association
of Suicidology, the warning signs of suicide can
include:

having thoughts of committing
suicide, threatening to hurt himself, looking for a way
to hurt himself, writing about dying, and other types of
suicidal ideation

increased substance abuse,
including abuse of alcohol and drugs

feelings of purposelessness or
that they have no reason to live

anxiety symptoms

feeling trapped like there is no
way out of current situations or problems

feelings of
hopelessness

a withdrawal from friends and
family and usual activities

feeling uncontrolled anger and
rage or wanting revenge against someone

acting reckless and
impulsive

having dramatic mood
changes

If you think that your teen has any of
the warning signs for suicide, don't ignore them. Trust your
instincts and either try to get more information or seek
additional help.

Preventing Teen
Suicide

In addition to all of the teens who
successfully commit suicide, there are many more who attempt
suicide. Experts estimate that 20 to 25% of teens admit to
thinking about suicide at some time in their lives and for
every suicide, there are between 5 to 45 suicide
attempts.

That makes it even more important for
parents, pediatricians, and everyone else that is regularly
around teenagers to understand how to try and prevent
suicides, such as:

recognizing the risk factors and
warning signs for suicide

calling the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline if you need advice on talking to your
teen who you think may have suicide warning
signs

seeking professional help, such as
your pediatrician, a child psychiatrist, a psychiatric
hospital, or emergency room if you think your child is
going to hurt himself

making sure that guns and
medications aren't easily available in your home if your
teen might be suicidal

getting teens professional help if
they have depression and/or anxiety, which are often
thought to be the biggest risk factors for
suicide

You should also make sure that teens
know that they can ask for help if they ever think about
hurting themselves, including calling the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline - 1-800-273-TALK (8255), Crisis Text
Line 741741, calling their doctor, calling 911, or going to
a local crisis center or the emergency room.
Sources: American Association of Suicidology. Suicide
Warning Signs Fact Sheet.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Web-based
Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS)
[Online]. (2014) National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, CDC (producer). Available from
www.cdc.gov/injury/
wisqars/index.html

National Center for Health Statistics.
10 Leading Causes of Death, United States. 2005, All Races,
Both Sexes.